Hi, it has been posted on a guitar forum that the guitar elicits primal responses from our brains, making sounds that trick us into emotional states like anger, power, lust, accomplishment and the like. It somehow brings out feelings.

I would like to develop a ChucK processor that takes incoming guitar playing and makes it sound more primal in some way. I am encouraged by the recent post "Kijjaz's Thunder" in which we create a thunder sound in response to the guitar playing. Would a primal sound generator make the noise of a saber-toothed tiger when notes are played?

Obviously for such a task I will do the programming myself, but I need ideas, experimental code snippets, and perhaps some one-liners. From your own experience, what about music draws out the beast within? Can you make code that sounds like a tiger growling, for example?_________________"Let's make noise for peace." - Kijjaz

There are many techniques for getting that kind of response. You can use high BPM's; BPM affects heart-rate in the listener and heart-rate affects how we think. Certain frequencies corresponding to brain waves (say around 8Hz) can be put in music by using modulation or interference and supposedly those affect brain waves and so can affect moods or patterns of thought.

Other frequencies and timbres may remind us of sounds like distressed birds or babies, those can evoke a "flight or flee" response as well, or at the very least become stressful which is basically a one-way ticket to the more animalistic aspects to our being.

There are far too many angles to this to casually go into. One friendly warning; this is a very interesting field but if you start experimenting you'll be experimenting on yourself and your own brain. Do take breaks or perhaps alternate with experimenting with sounds meant to lead to relaxation. There is of course no such thing as a sound that will instantly make you howl at the moon but toying with these kinds of things for a few hours can be quite disorienting._________________Kassen

maybe you could pitch shift guitar notes down and add some digital distortion and sustain?

a dubstep guitar station!

edit: not sure if this fits with your idea of primal in this case but i always think of pure headnod dancing as a primal thing and this kind of sound and music for me evokes this kind of response. as far as ChucK tigers go i'll have to get back to you

Very interesting responses, thanks. Combining two of the ideas, I notice that some of my more primal iTunes songs have a high BPM of either a loud bass guitar or a six-string strummed on the low notes.

I also listened and heard a sort of squawking noise not unlike an alarmed or struggling bird in one song.

The song that's got me on this kick right now is "Thunder Kiss '65" by White Zombie. You can get it from iTunes for 99 cents if you want to hear it. It has high BPM of a low frequency guitar signal and really intense vocals.

.dupion., it is interesting that you mention that particular chain of effects as I have recently coded them in ChucK guitar processing programs. All I would have to do is combine a pitch shifter with a sustain AGC and some X/(0.1+|X|) distortion. Hmm, may as well add some thunder too. Maybe I can figure out some way to include a guitar-to-drums effect as well.

Yes, very interesting, I may work on this tonight or tomorrow. Thanks for the comments (and the warning, Kassen)._________________"Let's make noise for peace." - Kijjaz

in which someone presents a tiger growling audio model in another audio program. I couldn't quite reproduce the results, but it's a good reference at least.

So then I coded up the following algorithm on top of the existing thunderstorm program:

Code:

adc => sustain => bass pitch shift => distortion => dac

And it sounds ok. The attached audio file has some of my clumsy beginner guitar playing as processed by the attached source code.

I feel that the thunder needs more variability of some sort, perhaps simply attenuation as it seems to be reaching the limits of the SinOsc overdrive even for gently played notes. Also it needs a tiger growl of some sort. Oh well, it is what it is. Comments welcome.

I've got one nice (quite peaceful, though) guitar effect.
The level of Primalness is up to you to play on the guitar also hahaahah
It's quite wonderful to listen to though.
I think it sounds like something from the 70's.

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Kijjaz strikes again! I tried them both and they are truly awesome! Great guitar effects, Kijjaz! I have added them to my primal sounds collection under your nickname. Well done!_________________"Let's make noise for peace." - Kijjaz

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
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Kijjaz, the trance is way out there! I liked the first two better, but trance is good also. I have a fun challenge for you and I to explore, or anyone else for that matter. It goes like this:

I am building a circuit for my guitar to be an on-board effects box, and I would like to prototype it in ChucK. Let's make it do crazy kijjazian sounds! I already have designed, constructed, and tested a Theremin that normally runs at 25 kHz, and goes down to 15 kHz or so depending on how close you wave your hand over its antenna. Good start for a guitar effect, right? Wave your hand over a box on the guitar and it makes a square wave vary in frequency.

Now I have just found in my chip collection a set of four MN3209 Bucket Brigade Devices (BBD's) which are really old-fashioned delay lines. They just happen to work with clock signals in the range of 15 kHz to 25 kHz, so magically the Theremin can drive the delay line chips (don't you just love it when a thing works out like that).

This range of [15 to 25] kHz produces a delay of about 4 ms down to 2.5 ms, so there is not all that huge of a time difference but enough to be useful. Can we use one or more of these chips to create a really cool sounding effect?

It would be best to actually model the clocks and make the delay lines vary in response to the clocking, but that isn't necessary, we could just use a phasor with a shred that adjusts the delays according to the phasor value. I have attached the chip's datasheet for reference.

I will begin coding up my test now, and if you would accept this challenge then we can compare programs and I will physically construct the best one. I hope to use just one or two chips so I have spares, but we can use all four if you like. I will begin coding this up now.

Correction: The delay is nominally 5 ms and it goes up to 8.5 ms when you move your hand over the Theremin. That should be a more workable range of delays. I can adjust the dynamic range by tweaking the Theremin if that becomes necessary or desirable. Fun stuff!_________________"Let's make noise for peace." - Kijjaz

Guess what? I stayed up late and constructed a prototype of it. It works too, but it has a lot of switching noise. I need to move it to a bigger breadboard and add some filters, that should help. It was such a sense of accomplishment to prototype out a somewhat complex and interesting thing like that in software and then in hardware and have it actually work._________________"Let's make noise for peace." - Kijjaz

Why does it seem that people mean negative states of mind when using the word "primal"?

James

I noticed that. When I chose the title I was thinking of a feeling of power, like after a successful hunt or a warrior's victory. Primal could be joy or lust or greed or a feeling of community. It means a core, fundamental emotion. Not just violence. Maybe it's the way I phrased something when I wrote the post?_________________"Let's make noise for peace." - Kijjaz

Why does it seem that people mean negative states of mind when using the word "primal"?

that's a good question. I don't, at least I don't see more negative connotations then with the word "cerebral".

It depends on what you would call a "negative state of mind". As I see "primal" it refers to the question of "fight or flee (or fuck, if you wish)"; the reactions dealt with impulsively by the part of our brain that we share with reptiles (meaning we can also deal with those topics on a higher level if we have the time or the need).

I don't think that's "negative" at all, at times our survival depends on it.

These can well be seen as "negative" because when we consciously notice them (especially in social situations) they tend to be quite inappropriate... but still; I quite like having a "fight or flee" reaction when crossing the street (and typically ending up with fleeing as cars and buses are larger then I am). I doubt any of use would be here without these._________________Kassen

It's curious how "primal" lead people to think about fight/flee (= stress), since a lot of people (especially in western society) are exposed to much longer periods of stress than primeval humans running away from tigers. I'd thinking sleeping was a more primal thing.

While stress is high I'm not sure the stress from the constant stream of information is the same as the stress from life-treating situations. for example; in the modern West dying of starvation is quite rare (I think more people die from eating too much) so it's different.

Anyway, by "primal" here I meant the class of emotions dealt with by the most primitive part of our brains. We might theorise that people find those enjoyable (in small dosages) exactly because they temporarily stop the stream of information that's so stressful about the modern world. That might be the appeal of horror movies and so on._________________Kassen

Well, yeah, but adrenaline is released by the body to deal with emergency situations so very closely related to the above.

Once that kind of thing starts happening your thoughts and perception change (more attention for the immediate issue, more focussed vision, less emphasis on sound). We could imagine horror movies work because of that; once you start being scared and the adrenaline is released you won't be analysing plot lines for literary value (there is of course horror with a lot of literary value, but....).

There is nothing "negative" about this at all; it's a essential element of survival, as a species we wouldn't be here without it.

It's just that when it goes wrong we realise how simplistic some of it is. We wonder why a police officer didn't take the time to think in a stressful situation before firing his weapon or get annoyed when somebody in a mosh-pit at a concert can't constrain himself to the appropriate level of force._________________Kassen

One primal guitar sound is Bass Growl, as illustrated in the photo below. I'd like to make such growl, which appears to be triangle waves superimposed on top of low frequency bass guitar waveforms. But they are not clear-cut clean triangle waves, rather they vary in amplitude and frequency. Do you have a suggestion of how to create this in ChucK and in circuit form?

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